“For us, it was love at first sight,” said Carolyn Junkin, recalling her teenage years growing up in Miami and her 75 years of marriage. “My girl friend had asked if I would ‘fill in’ for someone who couldn’t make a planned date.

“When Jack [Junkin III] came to my door, my father answered. He knew Jack’s father as superintendent of our church Sunday school.”

It was then White Temple Methodist Episcopal Church, now Miami’s First United Methodist Church.

That made it okay for his daughter to go out with a high school senior, two years older than Carolyn in a day when age differences made a difference.

“After that, Jack gave up his girlfriend for me,” added Carolyn who later married her blind date at age 20. Jack was then 22. The Miami couple honeymooned at a lakeside cabin in Umatilla, FL.

“We never would think of getting married barefoot on a beach then,” laughed Carolyn who attributes their marital longevity to their faith, noting that early in her marriage, she realized not “everything comes with instructions.”

To be a good wife and mother, she said she found the answers were within her, quoting the Biblical phrase: “Seek and you will find.”

“Our faith helped us not take each other for granted,” agreed Jack, 97, after he and Carolyn, 94, touched champagne glasses to toast their 75th year of marriage with friends and neighbors on Oct. 1at The Palace Suites in Kendall.

Helping them mark the occasion were a son, John Evans Junkin IV; daughter-in-law, Cynthia Dembrow, and two granddaughters.

“We lived the way we should live,” added Jack. “Our faith helped us not take each other for granted.”

And for those who marry today?

“I wish them luck,” Jack said. “They will make their own way, and I hope they have enough ability to have a long marriage and life.”